On August 11, 2026, the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service published proposed regulations that, for the first time, provide comprehensive regulatory guidance on how to perform nondiscrimination testing for dependent care assistance programs (DCAPs) under Section 129 of the Internal Revenue Code. While the proposed regulations were prompted by the need to implement the
Artificial intelligence (“AI”) tools are increasingly being deployed across the employee benefits landscape: from claims administration and customer service to investment analysis and participant engagement. While these technologies promise efficiency and cost savings, recent litigation and regulatory activity underscore that the use of AI in benefits administration carries meaningful legal and fiduciary risk. Below we
In less than three months, two federal courts of appeals have held that ERISA’s actuarial-equivalence requirement mandates reasonable actuarial assumptions, rather than assumptions that simply produce mathematically equivalent optional forms of benefits to the default form of payment. In Reichert v. Kellogg Co., decided March 16, 2026, the Sixth Circuit reversed dismissals of actions
DOL’s guidance gives employers room to fund or facilitate Trump Account contributions without creating an ERISA plan.
When Congress created Trump accounts under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, one of the questions employers quickly focused on is whether providing employees with a plan under which contributions may be made to Trump accounts would constitute
On May 21, 2026, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion in M & K Employee Solutions v. Trustees of the IAM National Pension Fund, and if you’re an employer who’s ever thought about walking away from an underfunded multiemployer pension plan, you should be paying attention.
The question was deceptively simple: when
Few areas of retirement plan regulation have experienced as much turbulence – or generated as much practical uncertainty for plan sponsors, recordkeepers, and third-party administrators – as the Employee Retirement Income Security Act’s (“ERISA”) definition of an “investment advice fiduciary.” After more than a decade of competing regulatory proposals, litigation victories and defeats, and
Since the first quarter of 2024, 10 plan sponsors (along with named and independent fiduciaries) have been sued in 13 putative class actions challenging pension risk transfers (PRTs), which are transfers to insurance companies of a portion or all of a defined benefit pension plan’s liabilities through the purchase of a group annuity contract. Generally
On November 4, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island in Williams v. Bally’s Management Group, LLC dismissed a participant challenge to an employer’s tobacco surcharge under ERISA, rejecting both statutory discrimination and fiduciary breach theories. The court held that the plaintiff failed to state a claim that the surcharge violated
Prudent appointment and monitoring of Russell Investments Trust Company (“Russell”) as an ERISA section 3(38) investment manager by the 401(k) Plan Committee (“Committee”) for the Caesars Entertainment Corporation Savings & Retirement Plan (“Plan”) recently paid dividends for the Committee and the plan sponsor, Caesars Holdings, Inc. (“Caesars”)
2. Courts Differ On What Is Required To Support Fiduciary Breach Claims